Senate committee OKs ‘Cupcake Girl’ bill

A committee Tuesday approved changes to state rules in response to southwestern Illinois officials who shut down a young girl's cupcake business.

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By Tobias WallState Capitol Bureau

The State Journal-Register

By Tobias WallState Capitol Bureau

Posted May. 13, 2014 at 4:42 PM
Updated May 13, 2014 at 11:19 PM

By Tobias WallState Capitol Bureau

Posted May 13, 2014 at 4:42 PM
Updated May 13, 2014 at 11:19 PM

An Illinois Senate committee on Tuesday approved changes to state rules regulating home kitchen operations in response to southwestern Illinois public health officials who shut down a young girl's cupcake business.

Chloe Stirling, 12, of Troy made the news one day when she handed out baked treats to residents at a nursing home. She made the news again when Madison County officials found out about it in January and ordered her to stop selling her baked goods because she wasn't working out of a state-certified kitchen.

“I was sad (about getting shut down),” Stirling, who's since been dubbed “Cupcake Girl,” said after testifying before the Senate Public Health Committee Tuesday. “I just want to bake.”

Current law states that in order to be exempt from Department of Public Health regulation, food prepared and sold from a home kitchen can only be sold at farmers markets, cannot be classified as a potentially hazardous food and cannot earn operators more than $25,000 annually.

According to the proposed changes, home kitchen operations like Chloe's would be exempt from DPH rules and free to sell to anybody as long as food sold from them is properly labeled.

Required to appear on the labels is the name and address of the home kitchen operation, a statement that the product was made and stored in a kitchen not subject to DPH inspection, a list of ingredients and potential allergens and the date the food was produced.

Those preparing foods from home kitchens would additionally be required to register the operation with local government.

Okawville Republican Rep. Charlie Meier sponsored House Bill 5354, which passed the House 106-0. Chicago Democratic Sen. Donne Trotter is sponsoring the measure in the Senate.

“This isn't an attack on those individuals who have lemonade stands and cupcakes and cookies,” Trotter said.

He said the regulations need to be in place so that officials can trace products to their source if there's ever a disease outbreak. Because we're so mobile, he said, “a cupcake purchase in Troy can easily end up (as an outbreak) in Ohio or anywhere.”

“We've been up here (to Springfield) twice, she's got 140 back orders,” Chloe's mother, Heather, said. “I can't believe she hasn't given up. I was not that patient at 11 years old.”

Trotter called Chloe's business efforts “admirable” and added, “We don't want to stifle any of that going forward.”

While he said an amendment to the bill regarding whether there should be a threshold on the amount an operation can earn before requiring DPH inspection is on the way, the committee approved the current version 6-0.